Nathan Eovaldi can dominate an opponent at any moment. He can struggle to go deep into games at any moment. He can find himself on the sidelines dealing with some physical malady at any moment. Regardless, he signed a 4-year deal for $64 million to return to the Red Sox as he hopes to, finally, climb to the top of the mountain and stay there. Can the righty accomplish that goal, or will he once again disappoint?
29 years old
Bats/Throws: Right/Right
Height/Weight: 6’2”, 225 lbs.
Position: Starting Pitcher
THE NUMBERS
|
|
Level |
IP |
W-L |
ERA |
WHIP |
K/9 |
BB/9 |
HR/9 |
GB/FB |
|
2011 |
MLB |
34.2 |
1-2 |
3.63 |
1.38 |
5.97 |
5.19 |
0.52 |
1.21 |
|
2012 |
MLB |
119.1 |
4-13 |
4.30 |
1.51 |
5.88 |
3.54 |
0.75 |
1.46 |
|
2013 |
MLB |
106.1 |
4-6 |
3.39 |
1.32 |
6.60 |
3.39 |
0.59 |
1.28 |
|
2014 |
MLB |
199.2 |
6-14 |
4.37 |
1.33 |
6.40 |
1.94 |
0.63 |
1.36 |
|
2015 |
MLB |
154.1 |
14-3 |
4.20 |
1.45 |
7.06 |
2.86 |
0.58 |
2.01 |
|
2016 |
MLB |
124.2 |
9-8 |
4.76 |
1.31 |
7.00 |
2.89 |
1.66 |
1.54 |
|
2018 |
MLB |
111 |
6-7 |
3.81 |
1.13 |
8.19 |
1.62 |
1.14 |
1.30 |
|
Career |
162G |
190 |
10-12 |
4.16 |
1.35 |
6.78 |
2.74 |
0.85 |
1.48 |
|
|
Baseball America |
Baseball Prospectus |
MLB.com |
|
2012 |
96th |
70th |
|
THE SKILLS
He’s built his reputation, largely, off of two things.
1 – He throws really hard.
Last season, Eovaldi’s heater was clocked at 97.2 mph. Amongst the 140 pitchers who threw 100-innings last season, that mph mark on the fastball was third fastest in the game behind Luis Severino (97.6) and Noah Syndergaard (97.4). His slider also clocked in at 86.8 mph, 27th out of the 140 pitchers.
2 – He dominated in Game 3 of the World Series last year and in the playoffs overall (1.61 ERA, 0.81 WHIP over 22.1 innings).
Coming in relief, he managed to allow just one run to the Dodgers over the course of six innings in Game 3. Even though he picked up the loss in the 18th inning, he was on fire in the outing throwing 19 curveballs in the outing, the most he has ever thrown in a game. He was throwing the pitch at 83 mph in the game, well above the 75 mph he normally tossed the pitch at, and ahead of the 79-mph rate he had during the regular season in 2018. “Just understanding, throwing it like a fastball to get your arm in the right slot position,” Eovaldi said. “Being able to throw it harder, because as hard as I throw my curveball, it was kind of slow, in the low 70s, and I wasn’t getting the break I wanted. I worked on it more and more. I was able to up the velocity on it and the break was sharper.”
I probably should have added a third… he pitches for the Red Sox.
On to the analysis.
Let’s talk spin rates. As defined in this MLB.com piece, “…high spin on a fastball helps the ball defy gravity for slightly longer than a pitch with average spin, and this is often referred to as a “rising fastball… Because the ball stays up and hitters are more likely to miss it or make contact with the bottom of the ball, the high-spin fastballs are positively correlated with swinging strikes and fly balls… A fastball with very low spin will drop more than expected, and sinking action can lead to grounders…”
There were 147 pitchers who threw 1,500 pitches last season. Of that group, Eovaldi checks in a mere 95th in spin rate (2,135), well below the league average of about 2,250. The fact is that though he throws extremely hard, he just doesn’t generate anything other than blah results in the spin rate category. The following table is from Baseball Savant and it includes every man who averaged 95 mph on his fastball.
|
Pitcher |
Total Pitches |
Fastballs |
Pitch Percent |
Spin Rate |
Velocity |
|
Justin Verlander |
3427 |
2093 |
61.1 |
2618 |
95.0 |
|
Walker Buehler |
2173 |
847 |
39.0 |
2415 |
96.2 |
|
Gerrit Cole |
3257 |
1639 |
50.3 |
2379 |
96.5 |
|
Luis Severino |
3152 |
1588 |
50.4 |
2365 |
97.6 |
|
Tyler Glasnow |
1855 |
1306 |
70.4 |
2365 |
96.5 |
|
Blake Snell |
2918 |
1500 |
51.4 |
2364 |
95.8 |
|
Jacob deGrom |
3212 |
1374 |
42.8 |
2362 |
96.0 |
|
Chris Sale |
2525 |
951 |
37.7 |
2355 |
95.4 |
|
Jameson Taillon |
2960 |
1037 |
35.0 |
2350 |
95.2 |
|
Mike Foltynewicz |
3041 |
1223 |
40.2 |
2349 |
96.3 |
|
Zack Wheeler |
2884 |
1238 |
42.9 |
2310 |
95.8 |
|
James Paxton |
2603 |
1648 |
63.3 |
2283 |
95.4 |
|
Michael Fulmer |
2152 |
564 |
26.2 |
2265 |
95.8 |
|
Charlie Morton |
2688 |
827 |
30.8 |
2244 |
96.1 |
|
German Marquez |
3121 |
1434 |
45.9 |
2207 |
95.4 |
|
Carlos Martinez |
1974 |
370 |
18.7 |
2207 |
95.1 |
|
Luis Castillo |
2778 |
1036 |
37.3 |
2198 |
95.8 |
|
Noah Syndergaard |
2412 |
499 |
20.7 |
2170 |
97.6 |
|
Nathan Eovaldi |
1795 |
710 |
39.6 |
2135 |
97.2 |
|
Reynaldo Lopez |
3084 |
1870 |
60.6 |
2102 |
95.5 |
As you can see, amongst the 20 men in the sample, Eovaldi has the second lowest spin rate on his 95-mph heater. Practically speaking, one would think he would get much less riding movement on his fastball with such a relatively low spin rate. In other words, the ball that Eovaldi throws will drop more than the velocity suggests it should.
Let’s look at a Driveline article on spin rates and the swinging strike. The gist of that piece is that the more spin a pitcher gets, when combined with a higher velocity, leads to more swings and misses. According to Jeff Zimmerman’s table in the piece, a 97-mph fastball with a spin rate under 2,200 should generate swinging strikes at just under 8.5 percent. Eovaldi exceeded that mark at 10.7 percent, but that was his first season in five years over 8.6 percent, and light years beyond his career 6.8 percent mark. I would think the totality of the data suggests that Eovaldi is unlikely to maintain that mark. As a result of all of that, Eovaldi posted the best K/9 rate of his career at 8.19. That was the first time he was above 7.06. Obviously, I’d expect some pullback.
Eovaldi walked 1.62 batters per nine last season, a full point better than his career mark. It was also 1.20 below his rate the previous two seasons. His first pitch strike rate was up less than two percent from his career rate, and his percentage of pitches in the zone was less than half a point up. He did generate more swings on pitches outside the strike zone, four percent more, but I don’t think that explains the fact he just threw darts all season long.
Let’s talk the batted ball.
Out of the 139 pitchers with at least 300 batted ball events last season, Eovaldi checks in with the fifth highest velocity mark in baseball on the ground ball at 87.3 mph. Batters smoked the ball off Nathan when they hit it into the ground.
Out of the 139 pitchers with at least 300 batted ball events last season, Eovaldi was 80th in terms of percentage of hard-hit baseballs, defined as 95 mph, at 34.7 percent.
Of the 139 pitchers in baseball with at least 300 batted ball events last season, Eovaldi had a 403-foot distance on the average homer he allowed, the 30th highest mark in baseball.
All of that led to a 1.30 GB/FB ratio. That mark was two tenths below his career rate. He also allowed a hard-hit ball rate that was two percent above his career rate.
PLAYING TIME
Durability has never been mentioned in the same stratosphere as Eovaldi, unless it has been precluded by something such as “he has never had any.” Here are his innings pitched marks each season. They include his minor league and major league totals (regular season).
2008: 10.2 innings
2009: 96.1 innings
2010: 98.1 innings
2011: 137.2 innings
2012: 154.1 innings
2013: 127.0 innings
2014: 199.2 innings
2015: 154.1 innings
2016: 124.2 innings
2017: zero innings
2018: 121.0 innings
Once in an 11-year career has he thrown 155-innings.
The last three years he’s thrown 245.1 innings.
Justin Verlander threw 251 innings in 2011.
Stuff or no stuff, Eovaldi has shown a decided propensity to fail to throw enough innings to qualify for the ERA title, and the last time he threw 125-innings was four seasons ago. That alone should bring you some pause when it comes to his outlook for 2019.
It has to be noted, that he has had Tommy John surgery twice. He had the procedure as a teenager. He had the surgery a second time in August of 2016 and he missed the 2017 season as a result. He’s part of a rare group that includes guys like Joakim Soria, Joe Nathan and Chris Capuano, guys that have had the surgery twice.
Part of the health woes, in my estimation, are his messy/complicated mechanics. Think of it. Did it really take more than a decade in professional baseball to mention to Eovaldi that landing on his toe instead of the heel on his stride leg was the right thing to do? Here is a shot from late in the year last season where he was landing on his foot, but not the less than ideal follow through. Here it is from the back. Notice the slight hitch in his motion and the extreme drive against his front lg. He’s not only in a bad fielding position, but he’s stiff and with some herky/jerky. Pedro also talks about Nathan trying to find a soft landing. Not ideal in terms of repeatability in Nathan’s motion, and while driving against his front side also helps with velocity, it puts a lot of strain on his knee and his arm (as Pedro also discusses in the video).
AVERAGE DRAFT POSITION DATA
As of this writing, here is the ADP data for Eovaldi (since February 1st).
|
|
Overall |
Position Rank |
|
170.3 |
63rd |
The Fantasy Guru Rankings can be found by clicking on the link.
CONCLUSION
By now, you know my reluctance to roster a pitcher who simply cannot stay on the field. I’m also not in the habit of paying up for a guy coming off a career season. Eovaldi started to diversify his repertoire last season, he threw less heaters and increased his cutter rate, and that led to improvement. As noted above, I’m less than optimistic that he will hold on to all those gains. I’m also worried by his track record of ill health, and the fact that the Red Sox might limit him even when healthy (he didn’t thrown 100 pitches in any of his final 16 outings). The price ain’t bad, but I’m just not a fan, so I’m certainly not reaching.
10-Team Mixed: A sixth starting pitcher.
12-15 Team Mixed: Ideally a sixth, but a passable fifth starter.
AL-Only League: The concerns about his potential to rack up big innings should illicit less than full strength bids on draft day.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday-Friday, 8-10 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). Follow Ray’s work on Twitter (@baseballguys) and be sure to listen to his podcast work too.
